BY JIMMY AKIN 10/29/2012 Comments (43)
"Despite the fact that this is sometimes portrayed as a “death to the rape victim” passage, that is not what it is. Note that it specifies that the woman is put to death “because she did not cry for help though she was in the city.”
The fact that nobody heard her cry for help in a populated area is taken as evidence that she consented to the sex act, under the longstanding (!) legal principle qui tacit consentire, or “silence means consent.”
You can argue that a more refined application of this principle is desirable, and–indeed–the Old Testament Law foresaw a role for human judgment in sorting out the facts of the case (as applied by a trial at the city gates), but this law is not prescribing the death penalty for rape victims.
It’s trying to provide an objective way of telling rape from adultery: If other parties heard the woman cry out then she’s a rape victim and is not to be put to death.
The law is not trying to have rape victims killed. Quite the opposite. It’s saying, “Do not automatically assume that every sexual act is adultery. Some are not consensual, and the woman is not to be punished in those cases.”
Read more:
ncregister.com/blog/jimmy-akin/does-god-approve-of-rape-dark-passages/#ixzz4CUsuCxuF
I don’t mean this to come off rude, but I can’t imagine why it would be a bad idea to go to a Diocesan website for reliable instruction in moral theology.